Mar12

TUESDAY MARCH 13TH, 6:30 PM Concordia University, H-763, Hall Building, 1455 de Maisonneuve Closing Panel of Israeli Apartheid Week (iawmontreal.org): Systemic Violence Against Indigenous Women Featuring presentations by indigenous activists Sheri Pranteau and Bridget Tolley and Palestinian activist Yafa Jarrar. Speakers will discuss systemic violence experienced by indigenous women in Canada, and the struggles faced by women in Palestine on a daily basis. This panel comes on the heels of the call for a UN inquiry into Canada’s human rights abuses with regards to Indigenous women. This event is hosted by the 2110 Centre for Gender Advocacy at Concordia University. Sheri Pranteau is a First Nations woman of Saulteaux decent from Winnipeg, Manitoba. She is a 33-year-old mother-to-be who is serving out a life sentence for involuntary manslaughter and armed robbery-use of a firearm. She was convicted and sentenced in Winnipeg in 1999, served 13 years of her sentence in prison, and will have served another 2 years of it in a halfway house for women, here in Montreal, come May. Sheri will be serving her sentence for the rest of her life, and can share with you from her perspective the what’s what of the Canadian prison system today, the changes she’s experienced over the years with respect to “rehabilitation,” and the degradation of “creating choices.” Bridget Tolley is Algonquin from the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation in Quebec. Bridget’s journey for justice began in October 2001 after her mother Gladys Tolley was struck and killed by a Quebec provincial police cruiser. In the past decade she has been advocating for and organizing with families of missing and murdered Aboriginal women and communities affected by police violence. In January 2011 she co-founded Families of Sisters in Spirit (FSIS) a grassroots voluntary non-profit organization based in Ottawa on Algonquin territory, led by and for families of missing and murdered Aboriginal women. Yafa Jarrar is an organizer with Students Against Israeli Apartheid-Carleton University. She was born in Jerusalem/Palestine and moved to Canada in 2003. Yafa now lives in Ottawa. Panel facilitated by Bianca Mugyenyi, a coordinator at the 2110 Centre for Gender Advocacy who participated in the World Education Forum in Occupied Palestine, Oct. 2010. Check out these other IAW events that are part of the same week-long series: http://www.facebook.com/events/141089889344442/ More info: 514-937-2110 // campaigns@centre2110.org //...